Tag Archives: baking

Fall is here! I don’t know about you but I just can’t get enough of fall. Warm colors, cozy cardigans, wearing tights every day, fall decorations, costumes, and pumpkin flavored everything! So I am going to add to the pumpkin madness with this recipe for some delicious cupcakes.

Preheat an oven to 375 degrees F. Line 24 cupcake cups with paper cupcake liners. Mix together the flour, pumpkin pie spice, salt, baking powder, and baking soda; set aside. Beat 1/2 cup of butter, the white sugar, and brown sugar with an electric mixer in a large bowl until light and fluffy. The mixture should be noticeably lighter in color. Add the eggs one at a time, allowing each egg to blend into the butter mixture before adding the next. Stir in the milk and pumpkin puree. Stir in the flour mixture, mixing until just incorporated. Pour the batter into the prepared cupcake cups.Bake in the preheated oven until golden and the tops spring back when lightly pressed, about 25 minutes. Cool in the pans for a couple minutes before removing to cool on a wire rack.

While your cupcakes are cooling, make the frosting by beating the cream cheese and butter with an electric mixer in a bowl until smooth. Beat in the powdered sugar a little at a time until incorporated. Add the vanilla extract and beat until fluffy. Once the cupcakes are cool, frost with the cream cheese icing and top with a pumpkin.

If you’ve never had zucchini bread before don’t pass up this recipe thinking, vegetable bread isn’t for you. You’ll need to get the idea of bread that tastes like a vegetable out of your head and think of a spice cake instead, but like a magical, special, super moist, and delicious sweet bread or muffin…like pumpkin bread. Anyway, this bread is quite tasty.

Preheat your oven to 325 and go ahead and grease and flour two loaf pans.

Whisk together your eggs, oil, sugar, and vanilla and set the mixture aside. In a separate bowl combine the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Stir the dry mix into your egg, oil, and sugar mixture until just combined and then stir in the shredded zucchini and the nuts if you’ve decided to use them.

Pour your dough into the greased and floured loaf pans until they’re about half way full and bake in your preheated oven for about an hour.

Like the banana bread this bread is also best after you allow it to rest for a day or so and it’s incredibly delicious with sweet cream cheese spread. Just sayin’.

This cookie recipe came along with Father’s day in mind and I’m pretty happy with the result! My Dad’s favorite ice cream is rocky road and he sure does love cookies so I thought if I made rocky road cookies I really couldn’t go wrong.

The recipe makes around 2 dozen cookies but it would be really easy to double if you wanted to make more.

Cream together the butter and sugars, stir in the vanilla and then the egg. In a separate bowl stir together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Slowly mix the flour mixture in to the butter mixture until you form a well-incorporated dough, then add in your chocolate chips, walnuts, and mini marshmallows.

This is a classic yellow buttermilk cake, it is crazy good and super moist. I’ve made it more times than I’ll admit in the past couple weeks because if you found out you would judge me and my baking obsession. (I would like to note that I did not eat but a couple of pieces though, they were birthday cakes and cakes for parties)

Anyway, what have I even said so far? Cake – good. Baking – good. This recipe – good. That pretty much sums it up.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Cream together the sugar and margarine, beat in the eggs one at a time, add the vanilla and set the mixture aside. In a separate bowl – mix together all of the dry ingredients. Alternate between stirring in the dry mix and the butter milk to your margarine mixture until it’s all well incorporated. Pour the batter into a greased and floured pan and bake for 25-35 minutes.

On a side note, I have recently learned the importance of greasing AND flouring your pans before making cakes, breads, etc. Flour your pans people! It really really makes a difference! That’s all.

This frosting is so so so yummy! Now, I’m not saying that I personally like it better than buttercream but it is a very close second and you absolutely need to make this as soon as possible!

To Make This Frosting You’ll Need: 1 8oz bar of very soft cream cheese (I used reduced fat when I got the best results), 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract, 1/2 a cup (and a couple tablespoons) of white sugar, 1 pint of heavy whipping cream.

To Make: 1) In a large bowl whisk together the cream cheese and sugar, then stir in the vanilla and set the mixture aside. 2) Pour your heavy whipping cream in to the base of your upright mixer and using the whisk attachment beat the cream on medium speed until somewhat stiff peaks begin to form.

>> a few tips: if you don’t have an upright mixer you can totally use a handheld mixer, or if you are very strong and brave you can whisk by hand. Also, the quality of your whipped cream is crucial, if you have a misstep with the whipped cream there is no recovering and your frosting will be a melty, oozy mess so be careful not to over or under whip. You’ll want to start out somewhat slowly and then ease in to medium speed on your mixer I didn’t go above 4 or 6 and I stopped every few minutes to scrap the sides of my bowl with a rubber spatula. It takes longer than you think for the whipped cream to form so be patient and watch it the whole time.

3) Pour your beautiful, freshly made whipped cream in to the bowl with the cream cheese mixture and gently fold in the whipped cream with a rubber spatula until completely combined.

that’s it! the frosting will keep in your fridge for a few days if you decide to make it ahead of time and is (in my opinion) the most delicious if you frost your cake and then let it sit in the fridge for a few hours, or over night and serve it chilled.

I’m not sure about you but pie seems like such a comforting thing. I don’t even super enjoy much in the way of fruit pie but the general idea of it is nice, simple, and just makes me feel good. When I think of pie I think of something consistent and sturdy, I think of family and love which comes for me with a lot of baking but pie just really makes it stick out in my head, maybe pie also seems southern which adds to the whole thing.

Anyway, now that I’ve gotten all sentimental about pie I’ll move on. I picked up some beautiful looking strawberries at the farmers market the other day and couldn’t wait to bake something with them. I considered making some plain old strawberry shortcake but the more I thought about it pie really seemed like the thing to do, so I made a classic baked fruit pie…but I will warn you. I didn’t make the crust from scratch, I used a boxed mix, don’t judge I also make crust from scratch I just don’t do it all the time.

For this recipe you’ll need: 2 pints of fresh strawberries, 1 cup of white sugar, 1/2 cup of all purpose flour, I egg yolk, 1 tablespoon of butter, and a recipe or a box mix for a double pie crust.

To Make:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees

1) cut your strawberries in to fourths and place them in a medium size bowl. 2) pour the sugar and flour over the strawberries and mix until the fruit is completely coated. 3) let your strawberry mixture sit for 30 minutes. 4) while your pie filling is resting go ahead and prepare your pie crust and place the bottom half in your pie plate. 5) pour your filling in to your prepared pie plate and cover it with the rest of the crust (I used strips of crust to make a lattice top) 6) cut up the butter and dot the top of your pie 7) whisk the egg yolk and lightly brush your pie crust the sprinkle the top of the pie with a tablespoon of sugar 8) bake your pie for about 40 minutes or until it’s golden brown and bubbly. 9) serve warm with vanilla or pistachio ice cream and enjoy!